<p>Ok, I am first of all a junior in high school at a small school of about 60 kids in my class in New York. I currently have a 3.95 GPA and I am ranked 4-5/60. This is very unfortunate because this is barely top 10% but all of the top 4 kids have similar grades... And my problem is that if i get one more B ill probably drop to atleast 7/60.</p>
<p>I am scared that this will look very badly for me because the only difference between me and the valedictorian is one or two Bs.... and 7/60 looks bad for college right??</p>
<p>Im expecting 2200+/33+ SAT/ACT... so will this look like grade inflation or something that my school is too easy or something??</p>
<p>Please need some help/insight in this problem!!</p>
<p>With scores like that, I don’t think it’ll have TOO much of a negative effect on you. You have no control over grade inflation; you do, however, have control on how you present yourself in areas other than GPA. I’d say a 2200 presents you to colleges in a positive manner independent of whether or not your school inflates grades.</p>
<p>Also… 5/60 still leaves you in the top 8-9%. How is that “barely top 10%”? If you drop down to 7, THEN you won’t be in the top 10%, but you can prevent that by not getting that “one more B”.</p>
<p>Short answer: You’re fine. If you’re looking to apply to elites or ivies, there’s ALWAYS uncertainty there, but you’re extremely competitive for most schools (grade/score-wise; I don’t know anything about your essays or ECs).</p>
<p>It depends on the school. My sons’ small school (also in NY) has about a quarter of its graduating class go to the most selective schools in the country. Kids in the second quintile grade wise have gone to schools like Brown, Cornell, etc. My son got into Cornell with grades below the mid point of the schools. The school profile indicates that it is a rigorous prep school with most of the kids doing well on the AP exams, and the colleges can see that the grades are unweighted and the courses are difficult. The school preselects in that its own admissions process is competitive.</p>
<p>However, the counselor there will readily tell you that students are at a disadvantage applying to some college due to the rigorous unweighted grading and grade deflation. If you apply to a university, especially a larger one that has a lot of applicants, that you go to such a school can be overlooked, and some merit programs have strict grade or class rank cut offs that could be a problem for student not looking good number wise in class rank. The Ivys and selective LACs and other schools with a careful admissions process that is cued to look for the type of school a student is attending will get it right, but not some schools, though the guidance counselors in these type of prep schools seem to be aware of the issues and will call attention to them for the kids applying to college.s So you need to talk to your school counselor about this and ask them what they do in situation like yours and whether this has been an issue at your school.</p>
<p>Do not sweat the class rank. It is much less important than your GPA and the rigor of your courses, and your test scores. Some colleges don’t look at rank at all because each high school calculates them differently. Many high schools do not send class rankings to colleges. In any case, your high school sends a school profile that explains the grading system, courses offered, honors/AP options etc. so that the colleges can fairly assess your transcript. Often then will mention the top GPA in the class as well so the colleges can see how close you really are.
If you are curious about a particular college, check their Common Data Set and look at the tables in section C. There is one there that shows the weight of each factor in the decision so you can see if rank is important.</p>